Behind Blue Eyes
by kaiserklee
Summary: Anna Arendelle dreams of a white dragon. She opens her eyes slowly, adjusting to the sight of her home, but as her dream fades she murmurs a name she remembers only at the edge of her consciousness. "Elsa." She will not remember having uttered it.
1. Present 000

Anna Arendelle dreams of a white dragon.

There is no rhyme or reason to her dreams. She can sleep dreamlessly for week, and then nearly every night after that becomes dominated by the beautiful white dragon. And the dragon _is _beautiful, nothing like the cruel beasts depicted by artists to be slain by some would-be hero. She – Anna just _knows _that this dragon is female – has large, blue eyes, proud and sometimes sad.

It is not always the same dream. Sometimes the dragon glides through the skies, powerful , taloned wings bearing her across the sea. She never looks down into her reflection. Other times, the dragon merely perches atop a cliff and stares at the moon, whose light reflects silver on her scales. Rarely, Anna sees the dragon battle, and for all her beauty, the dragon can be fierce too. Silver fangs line her jaws, each one the length of a human's forearm. Claws shred armor and helmets. Blue flames erupt from her jaws when she roars, but she does not resort to this often. Instead, she would rather flee.

She looks back, the dragon, and Anna wonders if she worries for her attackers.

Anna does not actually always see the dragon in these dreams, but she wonders whether that is true, because she has the odd feeling that she does even when she doesn't really. If there's no white dragon, then there will be a girl standing on that cliff, skin practically translucent and blonde hair so pale that it appears silver-white under the moonlight. She's dressed in rags and her feet are bare, but she is regal. She sits at the cliff, legs dangling over the edge, and hums quietly with her hands over her heart.

An alarm wakes Anna every morning at seven in the morning, and today is no exception.

Anna opens her eyes, slowly, adjusting to the sight of her home, but as her dream fades she murmurs a name she remembers only at the edge of her consciousness.

"Elsa."

She will not remember having uttered it.

* * *

Click.

Some cooking channel.

Click.

Drama that he has never watched and thus will be unable to follow.

Click. Click. Click.

Music blares out of the speakers, accompanied by uncomfortably loud pyrotechnics and flashes and bangs as a band performance appeared on screen. Kristoff fumbles with the remote before hurriedly smashing the OFF button, breathing a sigh of relief when the unfortunate music ceases. He collapses onto the sofa and sinks somewhat into the soft plush, but his relief doesn't last.

Once Kristoff realizes how the noise might have disturbed Anna at work, he whirls around and looks back at his friend, mouth opening as he readies an apology. It stays in his throat. Anna is not glaring at him but simply reclining in her chair with legs crossed, head resting on her hand and eyes closed. Kristoff doesn't see her rest very often. Anna throws herself into work every day, desperate to maintain the failing company that is her father's legacy—but she won't admit she's tired.

Kristoff quietly rises to his feet and tiptoes over to Anna, hardly daring to believe that she has fallen asleep. Her breaths are long, slow, and the tension in her face vanishes, leaving her looking like the Anna he has known all his life and not the one breaking down from stress.

Under her breath, Anna mutters, "Elsa."

Kristoff frowns, not recognizing the name. But it doesn't really matter because Anna _smiles_ again, and the sight is enough to make _him _smile too. Hopefully she can rest well. Kristoff looks out the window that takes up an entire wall of the office, and the winter storm from the previous night has blanketed the city in snow. It's cold even inside, and there are goosebumps on the exposed skin of Anna's arms. Kristoff takes off his coat jacket and drapes it over her shoulders, but Anna sleeps lightly. As soon as the jacket makes contact, her eyes snap open.

"Hey, Anna," Kristoff says quietly.

Anna takes her head off her hand and shakes herself once or twice, expression back to its seriousness.

"Why did you let me sleep?" Anna asks.

"You should get more rest. Overworking won't do you any good," Kristoff says, ignoring the halfhearted glare sent his way. "Just curious, but I heard you talking in your sleep, and...who's Elsa?"

Anna frowns, though not out of annoyance. She looks more confused than anything, and curious, maybe. "I'm…not sure. I don't remember that name. Sounds familiar though, sort of, maybe."

"Hmm." Kristoff shrugged. "Still, you should get some more rest."

Anna slams her laptop shut and stands abruptly from her desk, making her way towards the coatrack and taking up her winter jacket. Flinging it on and brushing her hair out from behind the collar while walking, she strides towards the doors across the room.

"I'm going out for a while," Anna says.

"I'll go with you then."

"Alone."

Kristoff stops in his tracks, but Anna looks uncharacteristically serious – not the horribly forced seriousness from her newfound responsibility, but something raw. Maybe his concern shows. Anna allows herself a smile, one of her genuine smiles that used to grace her lips every day, now turned rare.

"I just need some fresh air," Anna says. "Think of this as my break."

Kristoff nods, half-worried and half-confused, but he watches her go anyway, the door shutting behind her with a soft click.

* * *

Nighttime is more lively than usual, no doubt because of the snow.

And with the season comes festivities. Almost every building has lights and tinsel, and the streetlamps have been decorated with wreaths. There are small groups here and there playing in the fresh layer of snow, some families with their excited children, others groups of laughing teenagers, along with the occasional couple strolling down the street hand-in-hand.

Anna walks along the road, alone, her breath forming a light steam in the crisp air and her hands in her pockets. She feels a little uncomfortable around this happy scene. Once she would have been in the thick of it all, but she only feels tired.

A little ways down the road, where there are less people, Anna stops at a bridge crossing the now frozen river. It's unfortunate that there happens to be an electronics shop close by. It ruins the beautiful scene, the solitary bridge crossing a river whose frozen surface is smooth and unbroken. Anna ignores the sound of the news from the televisions on display and rests her hands on the bridge-rail, ignoring the cold that bites into her skin. She leans over to stare at her distorted reflection in the ice.

With a sharp intake of breath, Anna shifts her gaze out to the distance…and then she blinks and looks up towards the sky. Snow has begun falling again, drifting down from the clouds. Anna finds herself stretching out one of her hands, palm up, as she continues to stare above. One snowflake floats down into her awaiting hand, evaporating from her body heat almost immediately.

Anna curls her fingers, forming a hollow with her hand, and she looks at it for a few more moments.

She can't stop thinking about her dreams.

Every time she sees that blonde girl, that white dragon, there is a sharp, twisting pain in her chest. It takes all her effort not to cry out now with a desperate, sorrowful scream.

"Elsa," Anna says, testing the name on her tongue, and she wonders if she imagines that it feels natural. Maybe. She had only heard it from Kristoff less than an hour ago.

It seems to fit that girl in her dreams, though.

"Elsa," Anna says again, and her chest constricts as that horrible pain grows.

She shakes her head and turns away, intending to return to the office. She's been out here long enough. But the instant she looks back, something on the television screens catch her attention.

_GIRL FOUND FROZEN DEEP IN THE ARCTICS…THOUSANDS OF YEARS OLD…POSSIBILITY OF REVIVAL._

Anna feels her breath hitch as she stares at the screen, at the girl asleep within her cocoon of ice.

She recognizes that face, that white-blonde hair; and she knows that if the girl were to open her eyes, they would be the same piercing shade of blue that haunts her dreams every night.

"Elsa."


	2. Past 01

**SIDE: Past 01**

It felt good being out of her armor.

Good because there wasn't weight on her shoulders or a heavy plate strapped to her chest. But, Anna admitted, the missing weight was also uncomfortable because she felt so horribly exposed—smaller now that she was no longer encased in metal, shorter now that she didn't look down on people from horseback. It felt like she had been stripped of something as vital as a limb, as though the metal had long since fused into her flesh, but that was ridiculous. She didn't spend all her waking hours armored; that would be impractical. Those precious few hours which she spent _un_armored, though, she spent in the privacy of a tent. Not like this. Not wandering the streets, on foot, unarmored, floundering through a vast sea of people. At least she still had her sword. Dressed simply, she could pass as a traveling swordswoman and no one would bat an eye.

And considering that she was deep in enemy territory, she certainly hoped that no one did.

"Miss, would you like to purchase—"

Anna shook her head and pushed past, elbowing her way through a crowd and feeling elbows jammed into her sides in return. She had picked a fine day to enter the City of Dis, capital of the Southern Isles. Apparently there was some sort of celebration going on, some holiday about a revolution—which was a thinly veiled euphemism for a prince slaughtering his brothers to win the throne, an act that became something of a tradition for the barbaric state. Anna had heard that the currently reigning King Markus had acquired the throne in the exact same way, and she knew that he had thirteen sons.

Amazingly, they seemed to _encourage _fratricide.

"Miss, perhaps you would be interested in—"

"Not at all," Anna said, tearing her eyes away from the sweets on display.

She wasn't here for sweets or fireworks, and certainly not to admire anything of the Southern Isles. There could be nothing here that was comparable to Arendelle. As Anna infiltrated the city, her second-in-command was encamped only a scant few miles away—along with an army. Kristoff was reliable enough that Anna felt no compunctions in leaving him in charge, but she longed to return. It felt _wrong _to be away from them, the men and women with whom she had fought for so many years. They were hardly an army, really, numbering barely three thousand in comparison to the tens of thousands stationed at the borders, the _fifty thousand _guarding Arendelle alone, but they had trained and fought and lived together and they were her family. More than her father ever was—

"Some chocolate, Miss?"

"…Fine," Anna said, thrusting a handful of coins toward the vendor, whose gleaming eyes told her that he knew _very _well that he was feeding into an addiction. Anna couldn't help it. She hadn't had chocolate in a very, very long time. She practically snatched the parcel out of his hands.

But again, delicious as they were, she wasn't here for chocolates. She was here for information; Anna trained her eyes on the Southern Isles Castle. Apparently King Markus had discovered a new weapon to use against Arendelle. A relic from ancient times. A living weapon. A beast of wind and fire.

_Dragon._

Anna had already spent many nights imagining it. Dragons were the stuff of fairy tales. Dragon meant a hulking beast, meters upon meters of ridged scales that armored powerful muscle, cruel claws and wicked horns. A swipe of its tail could wipe out a score of men. A glance from its yellow, snake-slit eyes would turn them into stone. Its jaws, lined with serrated blades, could release a torrent of undying flames. Perhaps it would descend from the skies, heralded by thunder and lightning, or perhaps it would rise from the depths of hell, tear through the earth as it erupted in a geyser of fire.

She hoped the rumors were only rumors.

"Stop!"

Anna tensed, her hand already at her sword before she had fully processed the words, but her worry was unfounded. There were soldiers, yes, and they were running in her general direction with their weapons drawn, but they were chasing a little girl.

_…Huh?_

Anna felt guilty as soon as she realized it, but her first observation was the girl's unusual appearance. Her mother would be ashamed at her for jumping to judgment, but there it was—the girl looked _strange. _Her hair was so blonde that it was practically white, and she was dressed in…rags, though even that was generous. She looked like someone had cut holes into a burlap sap and forced it over her head.

"Stop right there, or we'll shoot!"

Oh, they were serious. One of the soldiers was nocking an arrow, and the longbow he was using meant that the girl could run as hard as she could—she wouldn't be escaping its range. Not to mention the straight path of the market, the people that had scrambled to the sides of the street and blocked off any potential escape paths; there was nowhere to run. She was running headfirst towards Anna, and the distance was closing so rapidly that very soon, Anna could see the deep blue of her eyes.

Anna grabbed the girl by her wrist, swung her around, drew her sword, and sliced the arrow in two as it passed.

"All right, we'd better run," Anna murmured, and she assumed that her little gasp was the girl's response. She hadn't cared for one, not really. She could already imagine Kristoff lecturing her about the need to stay hidden, but she didn't particularly care for _that_ either so she tuned it out, followed her own advice, and ran.

It was a little unorthodox, but the girl was fortunately light – too light, really, she weighed nothing at all – and Anna had no trouble throwing her over the crowd and into an alley, where she promptly followed by vaulting off a cart and flipping past the blockade of people. She couldn't have done _that _with armor on. Anna then scooped the girl up again, ignoring her small mewl of surprise, set her on her feet, took her hand, and resumed running. More unfortunately, Anna's lack of knowledge about the streets sabotaged her getaway plan and led to a nasty encounter with a couple of soldiers – who she knocked out within seconds – but overall, she called it a job well done when the search abated, the soldiers moved on to other areas, and Anna had contracted only a mild case of breathlessness as she leaned against a wall to rest.

Oh, and the girl seemed fine.

"Why were they after you?" Anna asked.

No response from the girl, who was sitting with her knees tucked in and her head bowed, so that her long hair spilled over her arms and blocked all view of her face. Anna took a step closer and the girl cringed away, pulling herself into such a tight ball that Anna immediately stopped.

"What's your name?" Anna asked again, gentler than last time, and the white-silver mound twitched.

"…E-El…sa?"

_She talks funny._

Not because she stuttered; Anna knew many people who did so, but from them, stuttering was purely a nervous tic. Elsa had spoken like she was experimenting, one letter at a time, as though the sounds were unfamiliar. She'd said her name like it was a question. Was it even her real name?

"Well, Elsa, I'm Anna. Nice to meet you…I think." Anna blinked and shook her head. "Not that I don't think it's nice to meet you, I'm only saying that the circumstances could probably be…better, huh?"

Elsa lifted her head, and once again, Anna reevaluated. Elsa was _not _a little girl. It had been easy to think that while glancing at her while she was far away. It was still easy _now _because of her demeanor and the brown rags that swallowed her form, but looking at her face, Anna realized that Elsa was likely older than her and…pretty. Unquestionably pretty, beautiful, even, despite her hair looking like it was unwashed and her face partly dirtied. There was something noble about her face. About her eyes. Sad and tired but wise, clear, and big and…very, very blue. It was a nice shade of blue, Anna thought.

"…Staring," Elsa said.

"Sorry, I was just…" Anna cleared her throat and let it drop, though Elsa tilted her head curiously. "You still haven't told me why they were after you."

Elsa looked down at her feet.

"Well, where you were running from?"

"…Dungeons."

Anna raised her eyebrows. She was deathly curious about what Elsa could possibly have done to be stuck there, but she doubted she would get an answer even if she asked.

"And how did you escape?"

"Friend helped me."

"Can you tell me about them?"

"…Nice," Elsa said, but then she pursed her lips. "Loud. Talked about…weird things. Hearts and vibes and…things. Sometimes scary too, but he was nice. Like you."

"Oh. Thanks," Anna said.

She felt oddly good about that.

* * *

Things happened quickly afterward, so quickly that Anna couldn't even comprehend it, and even her memories were unreliable.

Anna remembered resting with Elsa, waiting for the patrols to slacken, wondering what she was to do with an unresponsive, quiet girl on her hands. She remembered the day passing into night. She remembered leaving the cover of the alleyways, trying to leave the city, being accosted by soldiers.

Being separated.

She'd been desperate to fight her way out of the circle of soldiers that surrounded her, and haste meant sloppiness, holes in her defense where there shouldn't have been, and she'd been knocked down, arm broken, screaming at the pain as a knife was jammed into her gut. That was when her memories started to blur into a whirl of sensations and images.

Anna had been lying down on the ground. She remembered a sword poised over her head, the feeling of concrete scratching her skin as she scrabbled for something to defend herself. Then there had been screams in the distance, shrill, painful, her attackers looked away for an instant, her execution was halted. A gust of wind struck them all, and this, Anna remembered vividly, because the sheer strength of it—that feeling would ring in her bones for years to come. It was like being in the eye of a hurricane. Her whole body had vibrated with it, the overwhelming pressure that burst in her eardrums. She'd flipped herself onto her back so she could look up, and there was something coursing through the sky—

_Dragon._

She could barely recall what it looked like, other than massive and white and terrible. Its fire burned blue. If it was even fire at all, because fire shouldn't have been so cold. Anna remembered the cold. Numbing, miasmic. It settled like ice in her body and mind, freezing the blood in her veins and the thoughts in her head. Black crept into the edges of her vision. Anna remembered the screams in the city, the lurid glow, the dragon descending and tearing her attackers to shreds, and she had – maybe – struggled for a weapon to defend herself but the dragon had paused, titled its head at her and approached with a careful step—and then it left her alone, taking off into the night as the city burned.

Anna remembered that it had been beautiful.


	3. Past 02

**SIDE: Past 02**

It had been three years since the dragon incident, and Anna Arendelle was now twenty-one years old.

She had yet to accomplish anything.

Or rather, she had yet to win any accolades. Her life was the same as it had been since the time she was fifteen—sent to the outskirts to fight foreign foes, cutting off invaders at their borders and routing mercenaries and warlords that, like vultures sensing weakness in a wounded beast, occasionally prodded at Arendelle with testing strikes. Anna was _good _at it. Her force was small but dedicated, and loyalty and morale won wars; Anna had yet to fail, and her success should, by all rights, have earned her titles and lands. But her father had never acknowledged her success. To King Agdar of Arendelle, Princess Anna may as well have been another faceless, nameless servant, one sent to die and yet who, against all odds, returned to be a thorn in his side for another day.

It hadn't always been that way. Anna had never been favored, but the tolerance and owed affection that her father granted her in her youth had soured ever since Ellie's death. And that souring of their relationship was not one-sided. They reminded each other too strongly of Ellie to be anything but the bitterest of enemies; Anna still thought about her eldest sister every day, and every time, she wished that _Agdar _had died. Elizabeth – Ellie – had been perfect: ambitious but ethical, innovative but pragmatic, wise but empathetic, morally just but benevolent. She would have been a perfect monarch. Anna had no doubt about that. Ellie would have revolutionized Arendelle and brought them to a glorious golden age greater than any before—Arendelle would not be the stagnant beast it was now, but a utopia.

Instead, Agdar had killed Ellie.

Anna still wasn't sure what had happened. She had been out of the city at the time, fighting her first battle at fifteen. She had left Arendelle only three months before, and Ellie had been there to see her off with a smile and a wave, a promise to celebrate her victory together. Anna had indeed returned victorious. By the time she did, Ellie's entire household was dead, Ellie's supporters were dead, _Ellie _was dead. Hundreds and hundreds of people, servants, court officials, the crown princess Elizabeth of Arendelle, all executed for treason and never to be mentioned again on pain of death. Anna's entire world—gone.

No matter what happened, Anna would never forget.

Kristoff approached, his steps respectfully light. "You…really shouldn't be here," he said, but he made no attempt to pull her away. Together they stood in vigil at the complex that had once belonged to Ellie. It ought to have been recommissioned by now and granted to someone, anyone, but instead, Agdar seemed to have forgotten its existence. It lay there in disuse, doomed to a fate worse than death. It would be forgotten.

Anna may as well have been raised here, and she alone remembered the sounds of the household servants going about their business, the well-meaning debates that took place in the courtyard, the smells of whatever new delights were being made in the kitchen, the blossoms that fell from the carefully maintained trees. Now there were dead leaves scattered across browning stone. It was so quiet she could hear her own heartbeat—the only thing here that was not still.

"Let's go," Anna said at last.

She had to report to her father about the latest battles, and the day was no longer young; there were many hours left yet to stand at vigil, to wait at the gates before Agdar deigned to listen.

* * *

"I'll be right back!"

Elsa gave a backwards wave as she left the shop, basket of medicinal herbs hooked on her left arm, string of coins tied around her right wrist. She made a tiny hop down the stairs that led into the store, coins jingling into her palm and out again as she did, and she was on her way, gliding down the street with new, comfortable agility, before Kai even managed to respond to her chirped message.

About five shops down, there was a Mr. Dimmes who suffered from gout, hence the medicine she was delivering; and during the evening hours the heat of day cooled into a tolerable warmth that no longer stifled her senses, the throngs of people dwindled into a mild trickle that no longer set off her anxiety, so she was free to brave the markets and purchase whatever Kai needed for the store. Leftover money was hers to keep, and this, she most often spent on simple trinkets.

Today, though, Elsa stopped in front of a tank of water and peered through the glass at a bright yellow fish. It returned her gaze with a baleful stare before resuming its circuit around the tank, giving a particularly angry swish of its tail as it turned away.

"Interested in buying a pet, Miss?" asked the vendor owner.

"Ahh…" Elsa cleared her throat. She had long since mastered speaking, but in the presence of strangers, her skill was blunted by nerves. "N-No, I don't think I can take care of it."

"Oh." Visibly deflated, the man shrugged. "This little fellow's been here for a while. Well, feel free to look around, just don't tap the glass—might startle him."

Elsa did stay to accompany the little fish, though it was altogether uninterested in her company and, indeed, seemed to snub her inability to purchase it by swimming to the farthest corner of its home and prison. Elsa, who made sure to keep a proper distance from the tanks and the water they held, could hardly keep a proper eye on it. She wished she _could _buy it, but taking care of it was impossible and releasing it in the improper habitat might very well kill it instead. Elsa watched the fish swimming its rounds, feeling an increasing sense of melancholy at the monotony of its path. It only had so much space to swim, so much freedom to live, as was permitted by the walls of its prison.

She could understand that.

It wasn't very long ago that she herself toiled in the dungeons of a castle, oppressed on all sides by dark, humid heat, save for the brief times she was pulled out of her cage—only to be prodded with sharp instruments and goaded into bloodlust.

"Make way for Princess Anna!"

"Huh?" Elsa turned sharply at the loud proclamation, and her elbow struck the corner of the fish tank—and the instant she realized what she had done, she whirled around again, jerking her arm away from the splashing water; but her movement was too sudden, she could not regain her balance, and uttering a small yelp, she tripped backwards into the street.

There was a horse charging down the road, and it was coming straight for Elsa.

Elsa braced herself for impact – and prepared to feign injury – but the horse pulled itself to a halt just before their collision. Or, rather, the rider pulled the horse to a halt, so firmly and so abruptly that the horse whinnied with an indignant shriek as it threw its front hooves up and to the side, finally landing, with a heavy thud, away from Elsa.

"Are you all—"

Whoever had spoken cut herself off with a strangled noise, and only then did Elsa look up at her assailant—and her voice died in her throat in much the same way. Years had passed, but she still remembered. Anna. Elsa hadn't made the connection that the princess was the same person who had saved her then; Anna had never introduced herself as princess when they met, and the name was common enough that Elsa, coming to Arendelle and learning the workings of this kingdom, including the estranged Princess Anna, could not have assumed they were one and the same.

There was another, more pressing matter.

Her hand was wet.

Elsa yanked her hand back into her sleeve, praying that no one had seen. It seemed they had not, or else Elsa would not be surrounded by concerned glances and inquisitive murmurs but by torches and pitchforks; and yet panic drove her past reason and into instinct. She hastened to her feet, taking care to pull her over-wide sleeve further down over her hand, and she cradled the limb close to her stomach until her entire body was slightly bent over the source of her unease. Anna noticed, of course, not the deformity of her hand but the strangeness of her behavior. She outstretched her own hand as though concerned, with a tenuous tremor that was the only remaining indication of her surprise in seeing Elsa again. It was as though the past three years had been only an instant, and they were just now waking up from their shared rest, once again reunited in the corner of that dark alley where they once hid from their attackers.

"Elsa—"

Elsa ran.


End file.
